Is God’s Love Conditional?

[ronscarpa]

Is God’s Love Conditional?

Our WORD for Sunday, 9 Nov 2014

 

"Draw near to God and he will draw near to you."

  (

James 4:8

)

This verse means that there is a precious experience of peace and assurance and harmony and intimacy that is not unconditional. It depends on our not grieving the Spirit.

It depends on our putting away bad habits. It depends on forsaking the petty inconsistencies of our Christian lives. It depends on our walking closely with God and aiming at the highest degree of holiness.

If this is true, I fear that the unguarded reassurances today that God’s love is unconditional may stop people from doing the very things the Bible says they need to do in order to have the peace that they so desperately crave. In trying to give peace through “unconditionality” we may be cutting people off from the very remedy the Bible prescribes.

Let us declare untiringly the good news that our justification is based on the worth of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice, not ours (Romans 5:19, “as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous”).

But let us also declare the biblical truth that the enjoyment of that justification in its effect on our joy and confidence and power to grow in likeness to Jesus is conditioned on our actively forsaking sins and forsaking bad habits and mortifying lusts and pursuing intimacy with Christ, and not grieving the Spirit. 

Remember, in the natural, if we are to have a meaningful relationship with someone, we'll have to spend time with them to get to know them in order to develop any measure of intimacy = draw near to them...! 

Food for thought...! God doesn't want us to be strangers, because we were created to have fellowship with Him. He still extends unconditional love towards us, but the measure of our reward in eternity depends upon our participation in a relationship with Him here on earth, assuming we entered into one by receiving Jesus Christ and His redemptive sacrifice on the cross. Nevertheless, God wants a relationship with us here and now...! Enjoy...& have a great Sunday.....RON

[new york kevin]

Thats right. The beauty of this relationship is that mercy and grace are apart of it, Thank you Jesus. Being a earthly father I have relationship with all my children. Some grieve me with their life choices, but I don't love them less as the result of it. I let them know they are making bad choices re: friends, ways to relax, feel great about themselves, as they grow into men and women. All are of age now and according to the word we should allow them to reap the consequences of their choices since they know what is right and wrong. Remind them of these definitions, let them know what can/could happen as a result ... , put my foot down when their poor choices may comeback on the innocent of our family, let them walk in the desert outside my house and covering. All while being ready to kill the fatten calf when they return on their own to the Fathers house. This is done because my unconditional love for my kids lacks the use of angelic, drawing in the sand with my finger intervention, power. also because it lacks the islamic do as I say or I will shoot you or behead you option.

[renomac]

NO !

 

God Bless

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